It’s been cold and windy in Sydney this week and although the sun has been shining it’s definitely still soup weather. There’s something magical about a bowl of soup on a cold day, it warms you up, clears your sinuses and gives you a satisfied fuzzy feeling all over.

This soup is my absolute favourite; it has big flavours and wonderful contrasting textures. The silky pumpkin, smoky chorizo and sweet paprika combine together to create a truly luxurious flavour. While the chickpeas add a hearty chunkiness and smooth, almost creamy, nutty taste.

A quick squeeze of lime at the table and a drizzle of grassy extra virgin olive oil is all it needs to make your taste buds sing at lunch or dinner time. Beat the chill and warm up with a bowl tonight.

Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and sweat for 5 mins until translucent. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute until it is fragrant and the onion is just starting to brown at the edges.

Remove the pot from the heat and and leave for 1 minute. Then add the paprika and stir to combine thoroughly. It’s very important to take the pot off the heat because the paprika will taste very bitter if allowed to dry out over high heat.

Add the chorizo and stir to coat in the onion mixture then return to the heat with a splash of water. Cook for 2 minutes or until the chorizo begins to crisp, then add the pumpkin and stock or water. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 15 minutes until the pumpkin is tender.

Transfer half the soup to a blender, allow to cool slightly** and then blend until smooth. Return the soup to the pot, add the chickpeas and simmer until heated through.

Taste and season. Then drizzle with olive oil and serve with lime wedges

*Jap pumpkin is also known as Kent. Any variety of pumpkin can be substituted.
**It’s important to allow the mixture to cool slightly before whizzing in the blender because too much steam inside the jug will cause the lid to pop off and your kitchen to turn orange! Trust me, I’ve done this before and then had little spots of pumpkin soup in every nook and cranny of my kitchen. I was very unimpressed with myself!

Wow! This sounds really delicious. It never occurred to me to combine these flavors, but I can taste them already – tastes delicious :D. This is a very cool recipe…I’ll definitely put it to use on a cold winter day in Boston!

I’m so glad you asked! Yes, the chorizo certainly does go in the blender. By that stage in the recipe it has softened a little and then when half of it gets processed into the soup it lends a beautiful smoky flavour to the whole dish. Yum!

Axion

You might want to make a point of saying Spanish Chorizo. Mexican Chorizo is something entirely different, that wouldnt work in this soup.

Axion – Right you are. This recipe does use Spanish chorizo. I’ve never tried Mexican style chorizo – but will definitely seek it out now. Thanks for the tip!

Jason

My girlfriend and I made this recipe last night and just loved it! I put all of the little pumpkin pieces in the blender because I didn’t really like the thought of pumpkin chunks in the soup. My girlfriend, however had a few stray chunks in her bowl and really loved them. At any rate, we’ll definitely be making this soup again but will probably fight over the “chunky” or not version!

Hello, I just wanted to check if your recipe is original or from someone else? If it is, thebutcherman.com.au has copied your recipe and image and hasn’t credited you! I thought you should know. Cheers